“Oh, okay. Do you need a menu?”
Vincenzo looked up. Dark eyes, the color of a starless sky snagged me. The very air seemed to vibrate across the space.
“No, thank you.” The words ended with a catch in my breath.
Energy crackled along my skin. The empty spot in my chest panged hard. My heart beat fast, blood rushing excitedly through my veins. Even now, as I fought to remember my determination and reason for being here, I wanted to dash forward, fold into the proximity of that man.
I don’t know this version of him.
That thought was chilling. Head held high, I walked toward him. Every encounter in the past few weeks had been a collision. There’d been no quiet time to just exist with him. To get to know him again.
And now, there would never be. I stopped a few feet from his chair. “I need to talk to you.”
Noises, ranging from snorts to soft laughs, peppered around the table.
I ignored the other Made Men.
Vincenzo sliced a look in their direction, and suddenly they had elsewhere to look. That commanding gaze cut back to me. “Talk.”
“Privately.” We weren’t doing this here. Maybe it was safer to have witnesses, given who and what Vincenzo was, but I didn’t feel like airing my personal situation in front of the gossips.
You just want to be alone with him.
The horror!
I began to march to the backroom. The partitioned space was advertised for large groups, party rentals, or just overflow on the busiest of nights, when in reality, it was where Don Gaspare Morelli conducted business.
As I reached to slide the thick barn door open, a rough hand snagged my grip. Vincenzo spun me around, bending to get right in my face. “What do you think you’re doing?”
I narrowed my gaze. “We need to talk.”
Vincenzo’s fingers tightened around my wrist. “Not in there.”
I huffed. “Fine. Where?”
Vincenzo slid his fingers up my arm. The bustle faded to a drone. I was hyper aware of every inch of him blocking the restaurant. Those fierce, nocturnal eyes stared straight through me. It felt like they were looking for my soul.
He would only find a husk, because mine was dead.
I inhaled a shaky breath. Leather laced with tobacco, and something darker filled me. It was powerful, washing through me. Drawing me forward. Daring me to take a sip of the danger.
“Vincenzo,” I demanded, desperately trying to resist his spell.
“Mandy.”
My eyes closed at the familiarity of that word. The boy had been my best friend. This man used his name for me. Yearning shimmered through me. It had been so long—
“Outside,” he clipped.
I blinked and shookmyself. “Of course.”
His touch trailed over my shoulder, latching onto my opposite shoulder. With his arm looped over me, he guided us to the kitchen. I tried to step out of his reach, but his grip tightened.
This was too much. Too familiar. Walking under the shelter of his arm. Once, it was my favorite place to be. We’d never been hand holders. He’d always been taller, but now, even with heels, I still fit perfectly under the shelter of his touch.
“Let me go,” I hissed.
“No.”
